Theodore Roosevelt’s Valentine’s Day Journal Entry

“Roosevelt was at work in the New York state legislature attempting to get a government reform bill passed when he was summoned home by his family. He returned home to find his mother, Mittie, had succumbed to typhoid fever. On the same day, his wife of four years, Alice Lee, died of Bright’s disease, a severe kidney ailment. Only two days before her death, Alice Lee had given birth to the couple’s daughter, Alice.

The double tragedy devastated Roosevelt. He ordered those around him not to mention his wife’s name. Burdened by grief, he abandoned politics, left the infant Alice with his sister Bamie, and, at the end of 1884, struck out for the Dakota territories, where he lived as a rancher and worked as a sheriff for two years.” – History.com This Day in History

Theodore Roosevelt is a man I have the utmost respect and admiration for and this short entry speaks volumes about how he felt after those two pieces of news. Also odd that we’re able to see this and get that kind of insight about someone who was alive 130 years ago.